Ultras attack train in Assam; one killed

April 10, 2009 19:38 IST

A Central Reserve Police Force personnel was killed and 17 passengers injured, two of them critically, when suspected Black Widow or Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel Garlosa) militants opened fire at a passenger train at North Cachar Hill district of Assam on Friday afternoon.

A senior Northeast Frontier Railway official informed that the Badarpur-Lumding Up Barak Valley Passenger was attacked by militants at Wagrendisa, before reaching the Maibong railway station. The militants, armed with automatic weapons, targeted four coaches of the train and the engine.

One of the passengers, a CRPF jawan named A K Tewari, was killed in the attack while 17 others, including a woman and a child, were injured.

The injured were rushed to the government hospitals at Maibong and Haflong. The Badarpur-Lumding Up Barak Valley Passenger is the only train between Lumding in central Assam to Badarpur in southern Assam on the meter gauge route. The railway had earlier cancelled train services in the night after an upsurge in insurgent activities.

The incident occurred just a day after Assam Police Director General G M Srivastava reviewed the law and order situation in the hill district, where a central poll observer's convoy was attacked by militants on Wednesday.